David Sedaris wants to go to the Post Office.

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A post shared by David Perell (@davidperell)

ADDED: This reminds me of my favorite passage in my favorite movie, "My Dinner with Andre," quoted numerous times on the blog, such as here, in 2013, in "What do you think the difference is between a tourist and a traveler?":

"In the book, [Jon] Krakauer describes [Sandy] Hill as a 'millionaire socialite-cum-climber' and claims sherpas carried her espresso maker..."

"... with beans from her favourite New York restaurant, and newspaper clippings about herself to be handed out at the Everest base camp. 'A great many people were offended by her ostentatious displays of wealth and by the shameless way she chased the limelight,' Krakauer wrote in the book, which sold in its millions. [Hill] later said that the 'espresso maker' was actually an eight-inch manual stovetop percolator.... The book also depicted an anonymous couple in the group, referred to as X and Y, who had an affair on the expedition. 'That was me. I am Madam X,' Hill has confirmed, while her partner was a snowboarder. The liaison angered the sherpas as they believed it brought bad karma and caused the storm...."

I'm reading "'Villain' of Into Thin Air breaks silence on Everest tragedy/The New York socialite Sandy Hill speaks for the first time about what happened on the mountain 30 years ago and the depression that followed her ordeal" (London Times).

Andrzej Bargiel took 4 days to ascend Mount Everest from base camp and then 2 days to ski down.

I'm reading "Polish Skier Climbs Everest and Skis Down Without Extra Oxygen/Andrzej Bargiel, 37, became the first person to complete the feat" (NYT).

In the videos, Mr. Bargiel is... seen peacefully gliding through pristine snow, almost as if he were a recreational skier.... But he is also seen navigating tricky and dangerous situations, like narrow ridges, nearly sheer mountain faces and drop-offs.... The most dangerous part of the journey came near the end, Mr. Bargiel’s team said, at the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, not far above base camp. The team described him “navigating a labyrinth of shifting ice and deep crevasses — without ropes or fixed lines.”... Despite his exertions, Mr. Bargiel reported: “I came back safe and strong. I’m healthy, fit and happy.”

"She was hanging from a rope on the side of Mt. Everest, four hours from the summit. The night was frozen...."

"She focused on exactly where to put her foot, her hand, alongside her fellow climbers. Then, peripherally to her right, she saw an orange flash. 'I see this sunrise that I will never forget as long as I live,' she reflected. 'The colors — it is just red, and then it is orange, and then it is yellow, and then the blue is coming. It was so incredibly spiritual for me, and beautiful.'"

So begins a NYT article that is not about going all the way to the top of Mount Everest or about taking the tiny trouble of gazing at a sunrise. It's about tomorrow's solar eclipse and the elusive human capacity to achieve awe:

“The whole thing is very awe-ful. A-w-e,” she said, meaning full of awe.

Ah, yes. Thanks for the sledgehammering. We might not have figured it out, just as we might not have experienced the spiritual dimension of the sunrise unless we were hanging from a rope on the side of Mt. Everest.

The article must mean for us to laugh at her, no? Or is it sincerely attempting to maximize the deeper benefits of tomorrow's celestial event? Here's the article — by Elizabeth Dias, the NYT religion correspondent: "Gazing Skyward, and Awaiting a Moment of Awe/Millions of people making plans to be in the path of the solar eclipse on Monday know it will be awe-inspiring. What is that feeling?"

Why shouldn't Nepal take their money?

I'm reading "After Deadly Season On Everest, Nepal Has No Plans To Issue Fewer Permits" at NPR.

Nepal's government doesn't put a specific limit on permits. This year 381 people were permitted to climb – a number the AP says is the highest ever. Foreign climbers must pay a fee of $11,000 for a spring summit of Everest, and provide a doctor's note attesting to their fitness....

In a statement Monday, the tourism board expressed condolences to the bereaved family and friends of those who died, and added that it takes the matter seriously and was "disturbed" by the news.... "As is known, climbing Everest is a hardcore adventure activity, a daunting experience even for the most trained and professional climbers," it said in the statement....

Nice/smart of them to be polite, but it doesn't bother me that Nepal cashes in on this tourism. This is something I thought before I read the headline in The Onion: "World Populace Actually Fine With Rich People Dying On Mount Everest." Nepal might want to think about whether it's getting hurt by tourists or whether the image of crowds is undermining the prestige of climbing the mountain. Maybe just raise the fee. $11,000 isn't enough.

"A British climber who died on the slopes of Mount Everest had warned of the dangers of huge queues for the summit just hours before his death."

"Robin Haynes Fisher died after reaching the summit of the world’s highest mountain and is believed to be one of at least seven people to have died on the overcrowded slopes in just nine days. The deaths have sparked concerns over the large numbers of people scaling Everest, with images emerging of large queues up to the summit.... Mr Fisher and a sherpa reportedly reached the summit of Everest at around 8.30am on Saturday and had descended 150 metres when he fell unconscious and could not be revived."

Yahoo news reports.

Here's Fisher's Instagrammed warning:

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Climbed up to camp 3, 7500m but the jet stream had returned closing the summit after only 2 days so I descended to basecamp. Around 100 climbers did summit in those 2 days with sadly 2 deaths, an Indian man found dead in his tent at camp 4 and an Irish climber lost, assumed fallen, on his descent. A go fund me page has been set up for a rescue bid for the Irish climber but it is a well meaning but futile gesture. Condolences to both their friends and families. Both deaths happened above 8000m in the so called death zone where the majority of deaths of foreign climbers happen. Around 700 more people will be looking to summit from Tuesday the 21st onwards. My revised plan, subject to weather that at the moment looks promising, is to return up the mountain leaving basecamp Tuesday the 21st 0230 and, all being well and a lot of luck, arriving on the summit the morning of Saturday the 25th. I will be climbing with my Sherpa, Jangbu who is third on the all time list with an incredible 19 summits. The other 4 members of our team decided to remain on the mountain and are looking to summit on the 21st. My cough had started to return at altitude so I couldn’t wait with them at altitude for the window to open without the risk of physically deteriorating too much. Furthermore as I had missed due to sickness the earlier camp 3 rotation best practice was for me to descend to allow my body to recover from the new altitude high so I could come back stronger. This was not an easy decision as the 13 hours climbing from basecamp to camp 2 in a day was the hardest physical and mental challenge I had ever done, now I have it all to do again. Finally I am hopeful to avoid the crowds on summit day and it seems like a number of teams are pushing to summit on the 21st. With a single route to the summit delays caused by overcrowding could prove fatal so I am hopeful my decision to go for the 25th will mean fewer people. Unless of course everyone else plays the same waiting game. #everest #everest2019 #lhotseface

A post shared by Robin (@1c0n0clast22) on May 19, 2019 at 1:15am PDT

From the comments there: "It sounds like you knew what was coming but chose to take the risk for reasons that most of us will never understand I sense the hesitation and concern in your voice and words...I hope your soul feels that it was worth it. #RIP"

"Look at this beautiful tree. An oak, Quercus robur. It’s yelling at us, 'Helloooo!'"

"... says Wim Hof, the doyen of cold endurance stunts, as we head across Hampstead Heath, north London, for a swim in one of the ponds. Soon he’s catapulting himself into a gaping hole in its trunk, peeping out excitedly like a child. 'Here I am, talking to the tree,' he beams. 'I see the tree has personality. I go in. We are one. It’s alive. We are alive. Is that crazy? Bloody crazy! Yes I am.' Best known for trying to scale Mount Everest in only a pair of shorts and hiking boots, Hof has broken more world records than even he can count. His feats include a near-fatal 57-metre swim under ice during which he went temporarily blind, and a barefoot half-marathon in the Arctic. He’s also immersed himself in a tub of ice for almost two hours. Scientists have begun studying his methods to evaluate if they can offer universal benefits to people. 'Live your body, stimulate your body,” he implores. 'Arthritis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, depression – all of those diseases are a result of our neglected biochemistry. We need to be stimulated to help fight disease. Cold is a great stimulator.'"

Like marmots and marijuana, it just might work. By the way, I'm giving this guy a free pass to wear shorts any time, anywhere. He is the Man in Shorts.

The article, in The Guardian is "A cold-water cure? My weekend with the ‘Ice Man’/Wim Hof does the ‘horse stance’ on a tree on Hampstead Heath. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian/Wim Hof claims cold-water immersion can help fight modern diseases. As outdoor swimming becomes ever more popular in the UK, photojournalist Jonny Weeks joined him for a weekend to experience it firsthand."

Like the unfortunate couple who ate raw marmot organs and died of the plague and Willie Nelson inhaling/scarfing down marijuana, there's a thing that can be done and a human mind to imagine that it could work. It could work and it could cause a lot of damage, so... do it!

Nepal bans blind people, double amputees, and solo individuals...

... from climbing Mount Everest (The Guardian reports).

The idea is to cut down on all the dying up there, but there are some complaints, e.g., by a soldier who'd lost both his legs in a war.

One veteran climber, Alan Arnette, said the ban on amputee and visually impaired climbers was prejudiced, ignorant and irrational. “If this is about protecting people from their own ambitions, then over half of the annual climbers should be banned each year as they lack the experience to safely climb Everest,” he wrote on his blog. And where does this stop – people with asthma, diabetes, hemophiliacs or cancer? All of these have recently successfully summited Everest with no problems.”

Because it's there.

That's my answer to the comment on my post disapproving of a gigantic New York Times article about retrieving the corpses of 2 people who attempted to climb Mount Everest.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said:

Ann, if you don't want to read a particular article, don't. Even when starved for anything at all to read, I've never read every word of the NYT. I read the pieces on classical music and skip the ones on rock and hip-hop, but I don't complain that the latter are there.

That's just not how I look at the NYT. When the New York Times — it was the New York Times — asked George Leigh Mallory, "Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?," he famously answered "Because it's there":

Now, you might say, Althouse, that's a terrible analogy. Mallory didn't complain about the existence of the mountain, he climbed it. And you didn't read the article about whose existence you complained.

But the ongoing operation that is the NYT is Mount Everest. Climbing it is blogging it. To blog it is to continually critique it, from my individual point of view. For me to ignore the NYT articles that bother me and to simply move on to things I like and can read without feeling any annoyance or strain, would be like telling Mallory he should take a pleasant hike in the foothills.

ADDED: I thought I was creating the tag "Mount Everest" for this post, but in fact, I'd had the Mount Everest tag for a long time and forgotten about it. But now I've gone back and made sure it's on all the posts. There are 23 of them. It's a topic I've followed for a long time. There are posts about the money, the dying, the litter, etc., and repetitions of that great quote from "My Dinner with Andre," but I just want to highlight "How to know everything you need to know":

I overheard this snippet of conversation today, as I was walking down State Street here in Madison, Wisconsin. 2 college-age guys, one in shorts. (The temperature is in the 20s.)

"Where's Mount Everest?"

"Seattle?"

"Did you say Seattle?!"

"Uhh..."

"I think it's in India somewhere."

"I don't care."

Now, there's wisdom in this ignorance. Is there not? As long as you don't care about whatever it is you don't know, you've got perfect intellectual equilibrium. You know everything you need to know. Unshakable wisdom. Sublime.

"While this is an interesting and emotionally moving article, there are more important issues affecting the citizens of the United States that the NYT should be using its resources in covering..."

"... such as the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, income inequality in the United States and all the wars that the United States is engaged in around the world. For many days and weeks there is little or no coverage of these issues. Instead I see major articles about NYC buildings with manually operated elevators, designer shoes, or the retrieval of dead bodies from the top of Mount Everest. I doubt that today's NYT would be covering the Daniel Ellsberg 's Pentagon Paper leak as it did in the past, when with great courage it used its resources to make sure that the public got access to this important information."

A comment on the big front-page NYT article "Deliverance From 27,000 Feet," which is about bringing 2 corpses down from Mount Everest. I have not read the article. I simply do not want to read anything more about the people who climb Mount Everest. I can see that 2 people died on Mount Everest and became the subject of a NYT article, but 2 people die every second, and I would rather read an article about any random 2 human beings who did not leave their family to go tempt Death on the world's tallest mountain but who died anyway.

"What do you think the difference is between a tourist and a traveler?"

This is something I originally posted 4 years ago, at a time when I had the comments turned off. I wanted to read it again and think about the subject, and since I never exposed it to comments the first time, I thought I'd post it again here today:

"I think a tourist is usually someone who is on a time budget. A tourist is out to see sights, usually which have been enumerated for him in a guidebook. I think there’s a deeper degree of curiosity in a traveler."

So it's a continuum, and if you want to move to the extreme good side of that continuum, perhaps you ought never to leave your home town. The quote is from Philip Caputo, author of "The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, From Key West to the Arctic Ocean," and he's dialoguing with William Least Heat-Moon, author of "Blue Highways: A Journey into America."

Heat-Moon reframes the tourist/traveler distinction in terms of destinations: "let’s pick Arizona — those tourists are likely to head for the Grand Canyon, whereas a traveler in Arizona might light out for Willcox. Why somebody would want to visit Willcox, I don’t know, other than to see what’s there. Ask questions: Who was Willcox? What kind of place is it? A tidy little place, by the way."

You go to all that effort to drive way the hell out somewhere, and then you just check out some little towns? Why didn't you just go to all the little places within a close radius of your hometown? That's what doesn't make sense. Heat-Moon comes right out and admits he sees no sense in his own idea.

"Climbers I find are assholes at the end of the day!"

Said a climbing partner of Ueli Steck, greatest mountain climber in the world, who recently fell to his death near Mount Everest. The quote appears in a short New Yorker piece by Nick Paumgarten, who expresses surprise that Steck "had returned to a place he disdained for its crowds and its bitter base-camp politics." Back in 2013, he'd had to abandon an Everest climb:

He and his climbing partner that year, the Italian Simone Moro, had got into a dispute with a group of Sherpas who were fixing ropes on the Lhotse Face and felt that the climbers were endangering them. Moro called one of them a “motherfucker” in Nepali, a grave insult. A group of Sherpas later attacked Steck and Moro with rocks, at Camp 2. The climbers, convinced that their lives were in danger, fled down the Khumbu Icefall.

Paumgarten quotes Steck's own description of his personality, and I invite you to consider this as an account of how it feels, from the inside, to be what they call an asshole:

I have repeatedly asked myself, why I do this. The answer is pretty simple: because I want to do it and because I like it. I don’t like being restricted. When I climb, I feel free and unrestricted; away from any social commitments. This is what I am looking for.

I am a public figure. This has gradually happened and I can no longer change it. I have accepted it and the only thing I can do is change my attitude. I have sacrificed some of the lightness of being for it. It doesn’t bother me as long as I can still follow my path. I can no longer do what I want, and I am aware of it, but I still can lead a life, which makes me feel happy and content in the evenings.

I still need the liberty to do the things I love doing, though. I don’t worry about other people, and I don’t let them influence me too much. I try to find out what I want to do, and not what other people want me to do.

"Their cleverest scene together is the one in which Benjamin asks Mrs Robinson if they can't, for once, talk about something."

"Conventionally, that would make him the 'sensitive' one - the one who wants a meaningful relationship, rather than just uncomplicated rutting. But it comes across as cruel and heartless: He's too insensitive to sense her vulnerability, and too uncaring to try to figure it out. So, even in the New Hollywood, Benjamin is a traditionalist - opting for romance and conversation over sex and compartmentalization. Mike Nichols' genius was in finding the sweet spot where edgy sells, providing you smooth out all the rough stuff."

Writes Mark Steyn (on the occasion of the return of "The Graduate" to theaters on its 50th anniversary). (Can you see it in Madison? Yes. But only at 2:00, and it's a beautiful, warm day here. To go to the movies this afternoon would be like taking Elaine to a strip bar, no?)

About Donald Trump's incredibly short speech at the Congressional Luncheon.

It may seem that the most distinctive thing about it was how much of it was devoted to applauding Hillary Clinton. That took up about half of the speech, because the applause was long and the speech was so short.

The most distinctive thing was that he made his remarks to the members of Congress so small in relation to the length of the Inaugural Address, which was a speech very much directed to Us the People.

To the members of Congress, he said there was work to be done, and they need to get together to do it. "We all want the same thing. We're all good people. Whether you're a Republican or Democrat doesn't make any difference. We're all going to get along." That's it.

It's not true — other than as an aspiration. But it's his big ask. It's the premise upon which future dealings will be made.

But it's not important. The people in that room were minimized. Humble servants. Our eyes are directed back to the main speech outdoors, to The People. The We-the-People Speech:

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort.... Together, we will determine the course of America and the world.... We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done....

That's a lot of "We."

[W]e are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People. For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost....

The smallness of the remarks to the "small group" at that luncheon implicitly said: It's not about you anymore. It was a call to humility, coming in soft-spoken words from the man who's been portrayed as the biggest narcissist in the world.

And maybe he is. Maybe the cleverest way for him to be the narcissist is to diminish the others who hold governmental power. If he says to them: We of the government must be humble together for the sake of The People, the humility of Congress is more real than any humility that he can possibly take on. He is the President of the United States.

He has perhaps only humiliated all of his serious competitors for power, all the more aggrandizing himself.

So watch out. Don't be taken in. Stand back. Maintain your objectivity. You can't. But try a little. Let's be careful. And hope for the best.

Yes, one of the things people can do is die.

"Woman trying to prove ‘vegans can do anything’ among three dead on Everest. Two more missing and thirty sick or frostbitten."

There's nothing to cry or smirk about.

The economics of Everest.

"The math simply doesn’t work out in the Sherpas’ favor...."

Most Sherpas work on a day-on, day-off rotation, and can make a dozen or more round trips through the icefall over the course of a 10-week season. Most clients pass through it twice or three times at most....

For bearing such risk, a typical climbing Sherpa can expect to bring home approximately $3,000 to $6,000 at the end of the season....

If you really care about global warming, stop all unnecessary travel.

Via Instapundit, Megan McArdle asks: "Why does air travel get left out of the mix when we’re talking about reducing our carbon footprint?" She considers the class politics:

And although many car trips are hard to avoid, given 60 years of infrastructure development, a lot of the air travel is unnecessary -- and concentrated among the so-called one percent. Only about half the country takes as much as one flight a year; I’m willing to bet that virtually every U.S. citizen gets in a passenger car at least once per annum. And while most of those car trips are the business of everyday life -- getting to work, procuring food, etc. -- most of those flights are either vacations, or elite workers flitting to conferences and business meetings....

Giving up air travel and overnight delivery is much more personally costly for the public intellectuals who write about this stuff than giving up a big SUV....

If we’re going to get serious about greenhouse gasses, we need to get serious about air travel. Going to a distant conference should attract the kind of scorn among the chattering classes that is currently reserved for buying a Hummer.

I have a number of arguments against travel, so it's easy for me to adopt one more. I have thought about — but thus far resisted — gibing about global warming when the topic of travel comes up in conversation. I sometimes imagine dialogues in which someone asks me — as people so often do — if I've got travel plans for summer/winter/spring break and I claim to be doing my part in the fight against global warming, or someone goes on about their wonderful destinations and I puncture the  mood by inquiring about the morality of needless carbon emissions.

By the way, I love seeing McArdle use the word "flitting" — "elite workers flitting to conferences and business meetings." I used that word yesterday in my response to Elon Musk's "hyperloop":

I believe the truly modern technological solution is not to travel at all. Overcome the need to have the body go anywhere. That's the most efficient answer to our transportation problems. Musk's tube would supposedly get people back and forth between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Why? Pick a city. Stop this senseless flitting from one city to another.

In the comments at that post, mikee said:

A late 1970s anthology of short story Science Fiction included a story describing Althouse's ideal.

Instant video/audio/text/data communication between people and total availability of all information resources via something quite like a super duper internet led to the rich becoming isolationists in the extreme, to the point that a woman forced to travel finds herself flying over the Himalayas and sees nothing worth the effort of observing.

With great introversion comes great disassociation.

I said:

@mikee I think it's a limitation in the capacity to observe that makes people think they need to rove. If you really paid attention to your surroundings, you could be endlessly fascinated by your home town. It's similar to the value of a marriage compared to multiple sex partners.

And I say it's funny that the Himalayas came up in this context, because my favorite lines in my favorite movie — "My Dinner With Andre" — use a trip to Mount Everest to signify looking for meaning by going far afield instead of seeing it nearby:

Tell me: why do we require a trip to Mount Everest in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality? I mean...I mean: is Mount Everest more "real" than New York? I mean, isn't New York "real"? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out! I mean... I mean, isn't there just as much "reality" to be perceived in the cigar store as there is on Mount Everest? I mean, what do you think? You see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest, I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way. I mean, because reality is uniform, in a way. So that if you're--if your perceptions--I mean, if your own mechanism is operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd! Because, I mean, it's just--I mean, of course, on some level, I mean, obviously it's very different from a cigar store on Seventh Avenue, but I mean...

I had just quoted that last month in a post called "What do you think the difference is between a tourist and a traveler?" where I had said "Most of our depth comes from the life we live at home, and if we were really observant we would never run out of things to perceive and contemplate at  home."

These ideas are not about fossil fuel and global warming, but about psychology and philosophy. But it is the elite class that pushes environmentalism and (hypocritically) flits all over the earth (sometimes to talk about environmentalism), and it is the elite class that ought to be delving into the psychology and philosophy of travel.

But what about you, Althouse, don't you travel? The truth is, I haven't left Madison — other than to go to a nearby state park — since last August.

"What do you think the difference is between a tourist and a traveler?"

"I think a tourist is usually someone who is on a time budget. A tourist is out to see sights, usually which have been enumerated for him in a guidebook. I think there’s a deeper degree of curiosity in a traveler."

So it's a continuum, and if you want to move to the extreme good side of that continuum, perhaps you ought never to leave your home town. The quote is from Philip Caputo, author of "The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, From Key West to the Arctic Ocean," and he's dialoguing with William Least Heat-Moon, author of "Blue Highways: A Journey into America."

Heat-Moon reframes the tourist/traveler distinction in terms of destinations: "let’s pick Arizona — those tourists are likely to head for the Grand Canyon, whereas a traveler in Arizona might light out for Willcox. Why somebody would want to visit Willcox, I don’t know, other than to see what’s there. Ask questions: Who was Willcox? What kind of place is it? A tidy little place, by the way."

You go to all that effort to drive way the hell out somewhere, and then you just check out some little towns? Why didn't you just go to all the little places within a close radius of your hometown? That's what doesn't make sense. Heat-Moon comes right out and admits he sees no sense in his own idea.

Here are these 2 big travel writers, and they trash the tourism and hew to the old cliché that one ought to be a traveler, not a tourist. But they can't really explain the worth of this travel that isn't tourism. Unspoken is the reality that for each of them, travel is their work, if they are travel writers. Those who get paid for a particular type of work may find it hard to explain the value of the activity to someone who isn't getting paid but must in fact pay.

They do recommend writing as a way to "deepen the travel" — but writing is a way to deepen whatever it is you do, wherever you are. How do you decide what it is you will do? Let's say you buy into the importance of depth. Is traveling around, going slowly, going to small places, journaling, really worthwhile? Most of our depth comes from the life we live at home, and if we were really observant we would never run out of things to perceive and contemplate at  home.

2 of my favorite quotes are on this topic. First, from my favorite movie "My Dinner with Andre":

I mean, you know, there was a time when you could have just, for instance, written, I don't know, Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen! 

Talk about close observation, sharp writing, and sticking within a short radius at home.

And I'm sure the people who read it had a pretty strong experience. I'm sure they did. I mean, all right, now you're saying that people today wouldn't get it, and maybe that's true, but, I mean, isn't there any kind of writing, or any kind of a play that--I mean: isn't it still legitimate for writers to try to portray reality so that people can see it? I mean, really! Tell me: why do we require a trip to Mount Everest in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality? I mean...I mean: is Mount Everest more "real" than New York? I mean, isn't New York "real"? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out! I mean... I mean, isn't there just as much "reality" to be perceived in the cigar store as there is on Mount Everest? I mean, what do you think? You see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest, I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way. I mean, because reality is uniform, in a way. So that if you're--if your perceptions--I mean, if your own mechanism is operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd! Because, I mean, it's just--I mean, of course, on some level, I mean, obviously it's very different from a cigar store on Seventh Avenue, but I mean...

The other quote is from one of my favorite books, "Walden," by Henry David Thoreau: "I have travelled a good deal in Concord..." Concord! Not even Massachusetts. Concord. Of course, he didn't have a car.

But then again, he didn't have the internet.

Unspoken: Does Althouse ever leave Madison?

ADDED: A reader quotes my "Those who get paid for a particular type of work may find it hard to explain the value of the activity to someone who isn't getting paid but must in fact pay" and says that "made me think of this sublimely wonderful passage from Moby Dick":

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, -- what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

"'Candyass Blogger' Update: Free Speech Absolutists Who Banned Mr. Althouse UPDATE: 'These Are Historical Dildos.'"

I wasn't going to wade into the Loomis lunacy, but that headline caught my eye. I won't even try to summarize the post, by Robert Stacy McCain, other than to say that I read it out loud to Meade and we both laughed a lot and that it contains the phrases "Everest's testicles" and "historical dildos."

As for Loomis, I lean heavily toward academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the comprehension of metaphor, but against the hypocrisy that for purposes of this blog goes under the tag "civility bullshit" and against the appropriation of a child massacre for diversion and propaganda.

2 billion pixels of Mount Everest...

"It's, I think, almost 400 images taken with a 300-millimeter lens that are then stitched together. When you view them in the browser, allowing you that deep zoom capability.... Yeah, it's just extraordinary and we're so excited by that image. I have myself climbed Everest five times and been to the mountain 15 times. And when I'm breathless at almost 18 or 19,000 feet recording these images, I have very little time to study the mountain and learn about it. And, of course, I can't focus my eyes as closely as that lens can."

Says David Breashears.

Here's the image.